If 96 teams in the NCAA tournament would mean getting rid of the meaningless conference championships and providing byes to regular-season conference champions, then the more the merrier.

But of course, the conferences don’t intend for an expanded NCAA to substitute revenue from league tournaments, only to supplement it. Thus, everybody but the Ivy League indulges despite the fact that, in the power conferences, these tournaments barely affect NCAA seedings, and, in the case of one-qualifier leagues, gives their mediocre clubs an opportunity to overachieve for three days and fluke the league’s truly best representative out of the NCAAs.

The regular season winners of the power conferences — even the division winners of leagues like the Big East that cut themselves in half for regular-season scheduling purposes — should get byes. Then, all the at-large teams should be seeded and play down to however-many survivors, who then qualify for a re-seeded double-elimination tournament against the regular-season conference winners.

This would a) put needed value back into the regular season b) provide conference winners some protection against rust and the means for perhaps an intriguing second shot at the team that upset them in the tournament. Then, they could prove themselves to the powerhouse it appeared all season.

Selection Sunday and plenty of one-and done intrigue would survive this format, as would the best teams more often, the purpose of any seeding process to begin with. As compelling as was watching Northern Iowa hanging on against Kansas, worry, the tournament has become less exciting with a No. 1 overall seed out, not more so.

If Northern Iowa or Cornell make it to the championship game, then sure, this might become one of the most memorable tournaments ever. But those teams are still an unlikely three wins away from that, and this tournament even farther away from producing its truly best team, with the Jayhawks out and Syracuse and Kentucky one slip-up away from the same fate.